


Paradigm Shift

by sailtheplains



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: AU, Beru is an Assassin, Clone Wars, Gen, Headcanon, Owen is like Wash from Firefly, Sith Shenanigans, Sith Wars
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-29
Updated: 2016-01-10
Packaged: 2018-05-10 04:21:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5571037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sailtheplains/pseuds/sailtheplains
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Obi-Wan is forced to flee as the slaughter against the Jedi escalates. The first quake of the Sith was the first rumble of rebellion, as planets seek to protect the identities of Jedi among them.</p><p>-<br/>-<br/>-</p><p>Given the mess that we were presented in the Prequels--I chose to stick more to my own headcanon. Something more akin to Belated Media's "What if Star Wars Episode I was Good"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Run

_My lungs are burning…_

Obi-wan did the only thing he could do. 

He ran.

He ran and staggered to his ship. He ran to the cockpit and threw the control switches. He barely recalled even putting in coordinates. He staggered, swaying. Everything was blurring before him. Was it sweat in his eyes, or blood? 

…or was it neither.

The stench of burning flesh clung to the inside of his nose and knowing some of the blood on his robe was _his_ and he’d _promised_ Qui-gon he would train him…

Obi-wan made it to his cot before he collapsed. 

He dreamed of Qui-gon.

 

 

The following few days were a blur for him. He would never be able to clearly recall them. He kept his composure long enough to leave Luke on Tattooine and Leia on Alderaan. Maybe he should have killed them? No, no—not them too. He couldn’t kill his best friend’s children. Padme had done so much for them after she went into hiding when Obi-wan felt it was no longer safe for her to be around him. Whatever was happening to Anakin—he had to try to get to the bottom of it before Anakin snapped. Fast forward almost two years and not only was Anakin a burnt and smoking ruin, it was at his own hand and now he was burying Padme. 

The twins looked just alike at this age—warm squirming bundles that were eager to explore and didn’t understand that their mother was dead. But how? The machines indicated that she’d simply stopped living. Her heart was silent, her eyes empty. There was seemingly no intermediate process of grief to indicate a suicide but it _was_ a little too clean to be entirely coincidence. Whatever had happened—what mattered now were the children. They were spirited away to opposite ends of the galaxy. The odds of them ever meeting were less than a percent. 

He almost wished they had no connection at all to the Force. It was the only way to completely ensure their safety. But both of them sang with it. Obi-wan could touch their little foreheads and hear their little baby-thoughts that they didn’t have enough words for. And he could feel how the Force pooled and flowed within both of them. 

He’d never be able to keep them hidden if they stayed with him. He was grasping at control, at composure—he needed time before he could deal with the babies. But still, his heart clenched when he put Leia on the ship with Bail and took Luke to Tattooine. His betrayal was complete. He’d killed Anakin, he’d buried Padme and now he was ripping the last pieces of his two friends and throwing them to their fates. 

 

Owen took one frantic look at him and rushed forward. “Did it happen, Benni??”

Obi-wan looked down and took a slow breath. “Yes….Anakin is gone.”

The Jedi felt Owen’s distress. It broadcasted across his eyes like a billboard. Beru pulled up her goggles, wiping dust off her cheek. “What about Padme?”

Obi-wan closed his eyes. “She’s dead.”

“What the—holy shit—what happened?” Owen demanded. “God—did he _kill_ her—“

“No, no….almost….a-almost.”

Beru heard the catch in his voice. She exchanged a look with Owen and reached out to gently lay a hand on the Jedi’s sleeve. “Ben…”

“I can’t stay—“

“Ben…it’s not your fault.”

“Don’t ever tell Luke what his father became. He was a pilot, spice trader or something. Not…not this. He can never know. If the Empire ever found him…” Obi-wan reached out, gently touching Luke’s forehead. A brush of sand and familiarity and he turned away.

“Ben!” Owen started, handing the baby to Beru. “Ben! You don’t have to go!”

“Ben—please! Come back!”

Obi-wan let the bay close. He wasn’t sure how he got to the cockpit. He set a course for the Jedi temple. 

 

He watched the stars fly by—flashes of light, streaking them across the glass seemed to go too fast and yet, slow enough to blur together. He broke out in a cold sweat, rocked gently back and forth, staring out into the darkness.

For a long time, he was silent. As the lights dimmed and the ship reserved energy, the cockpit was glowing, spotting his face. The red blurred.

Obi-wan sobbed in the dark quiet of space. For everything he’d held back as a boy to losing Qui-gon, finding his first real friends in Anakin and Padme and Owen and Beru and now…losing everything. Was this truly the will of the Force? Where was the instinctive balance of Light and Dark? What about the prophecy Windu had gone on and on about? Was there actual Will to the Force? Would the Force really will the butchering of children, of adult Jedi, of the innocent? The Force wasn’t like a God—it was like gravity. It was a thing which existed. It can be used and tested. It could not be recorded like a blood test—but it could be observed. Of all Obi-wan had been taught of the Force—even during the Uprising and the eradication of the Sith—he never thought he’d see himself in their story, on the opposite side. 

Was it now up to Obi-wan? Could _he_ restore balance? Surely the prophecy wasn’t referring to _him_. It was Anakin. It had always been Anakin. Qui-gon had picked him up at that turning dustbowl and dropped him into everything on that feeling alone. Obi-wan trusted him. But out here in the Dark, alone, knowing he was heading into a massacre…he knew the truth. It wasn’t his faith in Qui-gon that had been misplaced. It was Qui-gon’s faith in him.

 _Sometimes things are clouded. Sometimes we’re wrong,_ he grit his teeth. _Was I the weak link all along?_

A pit opened up in his stomach. 

He jerked awake when the console started to beep at him. His eyes were gummy in a way that told him he’d cried in his sleep, his beard was ruffled and fingernail prints were locked into his palms. He’d gritted his teeth so hard that his jaw was locked out of place for a minute. 

What he saw outside, however, woke him instantly. He lurched forward, stopping the ship completely. Coruscant was blockaded. Frequencies were buzzing and flickering on his console. Obi-wan flipped a switch—watching a news program discussing the institution of martial law and the destruction order of the Jedi. There were images of the children. The children Anakin had….

Obi-wan shut off the panels and turned the ship around. There was nothing left in Coruscant. The sounds chased him away from the city-planet. The screams and the pain, the shock of betrayal, the helplessness as they were overwhelmed and cut down. Masters trying to protect new pupils. Padawan desperately fighting for their Masters. 

His Master was already dead. His Padawan had turned against him. 

And so he did the only thing he could do.

Run.


	2. Something for a Jedi To Do

The Skywalkers were an old family. Ages and ages ago, when humans first traveled beyond the cage of Earth, colonies were built in space. The moon was humanity’s first stop. As fuel advanced and traveling at lightspeed became possible, other planets discovered that not only could support human life—but also had life of its own. Some of it was very similar to the humans of Earth. 

The matriarch of the Skywalker family, Olivia Routan, was the first human to set foot on the planet Logeen—then considered far away. The inhabitants were strong in the Force, though she did not know that then. It was a strange thing, still, to be asked where she was from and her heritage meant nothing. She was from Earth—not one of the miniscule countries of it, just Earth. One of the Earth-type Humans. Very little knowledge of the greater galaxy and almost none of the Force. But they were inventive, accomplished builders and very curious. She integrated quickly and when she explored the Galactic government embassies and applied for citizenship, she changed her name to Skywalker. It was a romantic gesture, a little dramatic—but heartfelt. She was walking the sky. And her children would all bear the name. She explored the galaxy and bore several children. Those children went to all corners of it. 

Because of their travel, the Skywalkers were not exactly a rare name—but it wasn’t common either. A Skywalker could go his whole life and never meet another with the name—but he would be aware that other Skywalkers existed. A friend's cousin's friend or something, usually. The story went that all Skywalkers were related to Olivia. 

An Imperial academy would remark at the rarity of running into the name. An Imperial officer with a high enough rank would know the history of that name and perhaps do some digging…just in case…

If Luke ever went to the Academy, it would take them no time at all to discover him and a simple blood test would confirm his parentage. It would be easy for them to bring him to Vader and the Emperor. And they would kill him.

Obi-wan was so certain of this, he wrote to Owen and Beru. As Luke grew older, especially if he showed any affinity for the Force—he must not leave Tattooine for any kind of Imperial post or school. It would be difficult, he suspected—but he’d rather Luke be frustrated until he could tell the boy the truth, than be dead. To Luke, he would know his father was a pilot, his mother had died a slave on Tattooine and Owen and Beru had adopted him and raised him as their own. He would never know how they met Ben Kenobi.

Leia would be raised as Bail Organa’s daughter and never know any different. Her name would be buried. She would disappear as Leia Skywalker, stillborn to Padme and reappear as Princess Leia Organa. But any affinity she had to the Force, Obi-wan warned in his letter to Bail, must be ignored. If she were awakened, to become strong with it—there was always the chance that Vader would sense her. At least as a Princess she would be well-protected. She would recall her mother only in fragments and know that the woman died young. She would know Ben Kenobi only as a commander during the Clone Wars, an accomplished warrior and former Jedi. To her, he would be a symbol of the Rebellion that she would come to lead. He should have been her favored uncle or grandfather, he should have had his own children for Luke and Leia to know and play with and learn about the Force together. But that could never be—for everyone’s protection, the twins must never know.

 

Obi-wan shut down his datapad, the encrypted letters flying to their destinations. 

He watched the stars flash by for a time, until he could make himself get up. He had to do _something_. The Galactic Alliance was shifting to the Empire. Planets were consumed by it. All of the Inner Rim planets had already fallen, flooded with the Clone Troopers. Checkpoints, blockades, passport recalls, deportations—the senate was in chaos as objections erupted from those who had not yet been quelled. 

Jedi were peaceful, noble knights that served the Republic! What could ever justify their slaughter?

Those voices were silenced, usually by violence. The message was clear. Turn over the Jedi or face retribution from the Empire. The objections were quieted. 

But still, underground, Jedi survived the cull. Obi-wan simply needed to find them. He, Yoda—other masters, surely they could _do_ something. There was nothing else for it and he headed for Tob’ck.

Tob’ck was an Outer Rim planet with a crown of green due to an unusual vertical rotation around its sun. Its polar caps sat east and west and a massive ocean separated the north and south lands. In the middle of this gargantuan puddle, was a massive outpost. All artificially constructed as the waypoint between all the poles, it spidered out to land and ice. It reached great arms underneath to the ocean floor, uncurling long glass and metal fingers to house its citizens. It was its own city-state, Tob’Ka, which meant ‘The Middle’. Unsurprisingly, it was the primary seat of government and the most densely populated city on the planet. 

He had been to this place a dozen times or so in his life—back when Qui-gon had first begun to take him to the Outer Rim. When they were still fighting the Sith.

He dreamed about it sometimes. When he meditated—he saw it in flashes, felt the burning reek of charred flesh, the screaming of civilians as they died. The brutal hits as the Force attempted to absorb the disturbances, as its Jedi and its Sith fought again. Each attempt from the Force to correct made all those sensitive to it cringe. 

_What did it mean, to bring balance to the Force, anyway? How would one even do that?_

Those were dark times.

“I was such a fool,” he murmured, touching the glass of the windows, remembering how he’d longed for action. How he sometimes found himself missing the Sith Wars….

Qui-gon had looked at him with such pity, such knowing sorrow…

And now he’d give anything to go back to when they found Anakin and somehow stop it. To stop the war and Palpatine…now, the only way to stop Vader….

_…was the Dark side?_

Obi-wan shook his head. No. That was just temptation. He was in mourning, in grief. He wasn’t thinking clearly. 

Anyway, on Tob’ck, he could go to the Kintop Glade. Kintop was some historic war hero that Obi-wan didn’t know much about—though Qui-gon had shown an interest in him, pointing out the statue of him and starting to comment on his weapons before he noticed Obi-wan wasn’t really paying attention. 

_He had that kind-eyed smile when I did things like that. He’d just chuckle and smile._

Another pang at the thought of his old Master. 

Anyway, he could go to Kintop Glade—a place strong with the Light side of the Force. His grief and distraction could be compensated for there much easier than in his ship. He needed to clear his mind and think of what to do. He wished again that he could have taken Beru and Owen with him. Owen was a top-notch pilot and good with his hands, Beru could sweettalk her way out of just about anything. She was so good at it, that Obi-wan _and_ Qui-gon had, on separate occasions, attempted to feel for the Force in her. Owen laughed when he’d told him. 

“She’s just really good at it, Ben. All that training on D’Raz—you know? Diplomat, spy, poison detector, body guard. Very intuitive.”

“Clearly not if she left it all for you.”

“I wonder sometimes about that…” Owen had laughed, raising an eyebrow at Beru, who feigned looking innocent.

“It’s creepy Finishing School. It never quite lets go,” Beru winked at him. 

 

But it would only have put them at risk—and there was no one else he trusted to take Luke. He’d seen Owen scoot through Galactic ports, stall in mid-air and somehow get them going again to safety. Obi-wan had seen Beru take the head off a Tax’di—even all the root-like growths in its throat. They could protect Luke.

He had to get to Kintop. 

Tob’ck, being an Outer Rim planet, had minimal influence from the galactic government. It had even less from the new Imperial one. Yes, they had received the order to halt all travel in and out of their ports and the officials even posted the order like it was a sloppy picture of their favorite pin-up. But the most they did when Obi-wan docked was ask him his name and where he’d come from. That was easy, he was Ben Kenobi. He’d just come from Tattooine. He submitted his false identification chip (another gift from Beru) that confirmed him as Benjin Kenobi, an independent shipping agent, from another Outer Rim planet and friendly with Tob’ck (the Huts here knew the Huts there, he’d heard). 

The official, a stern-looking female G’nashi, only said, “May want to change those clothes and that name. They’re looking for a Kenobi uptown.”

“I’ll do that. Thank you,” said Ben Kenobi, knowing the clothes would have to be his first stop. Qui-gon had told him very early on—there was no shame in being a Jedi but if one ever needed to blend in—best to put on local garments immediately. He had pulled all the credits he had that remained to him on Coruscant and exchanged them on Tattooine. Now he exchanged them again for the Tob’ck Rini and outfitted himself like an independent transporter. His lightsaber went into his pack and he shouldered it. 

The Kintop was a deep underground cavern. It could only be accessed on the outskirts of Tob'ka. Qui-gon had shown him the way and he’d always intended to take Anakin here to show him. The spot had that aura about it that Ben had come to recognize. He climbed down the rocky sea wall and edged his way into the water. The Force was Light here and warm. It embraced him, penetrated him, soothed him in a way nothing else ever had. He slipped into it and closed his eyes, to will the water over himself, let it guide him to the entrance. Don’t worry about drowning or monsters or anything else. Trust the Force, let it guide him to what was a sort of geyser spout that opened and closed. 

Another Jedi long-passed had constructed a sort of deck so a Jedi who might be injured wouldn’t simply fall to his death. Entering the spout sucked him down and he could hear the singing, the chorus of life already. He reached out on instinct, grabbing the exit and flowing out to the deck. He landed on his feet, soaked to the bone but warm. 

The cavern was lit by spectacular gold and silver lights. It was a special kind of rock and helped in the growth of a special glowing flower. The water here was still as glass and a small island was perched in the middle, as if by intelligent design. 

He felt a lump form in his throat. It was hard to swallow, suddenly. He dropped his gear on the deck and staggered through the pool to the island. This was the place where he’d seen Qui-gon’s master. He’d communed with her on a matter of the Sith while Obi-wan observed. 

This was where Qui-gon had brought him when he’d been burned during the Battle of Sytris.

This was where the Force cradled him, accepted him and soothed him. In the dim light, Ben fell to his knees. He gripped tight into the moss, clinging and closed his eyes, struggling again to contain himself. It took several minutes in the quiet, dim warmth, for him to relax enough to sit. To net his fingers together and breath in, to become aware of and feel the Force flow all around him and through him. And to reach as Yoda had taught him, to reach for Master Qui-gon.

Everyone said the Force felt a little bit different, the images it brought to mind varied from Jedi to Jedi (and, he supposed, Sith to Sith). Qui-gon had always associated the Force with a garden, Obi-wan always imagined stars. Thousand and thousands of stars, cast across the dark sky like dust, glimmering in their little lights. It was peace to him. It was a quiet peace. 

He’d wondered sometimes at how Anakin had described the Force during meditation. He always said a flat, rocky plain, with gigantic boulders placed like mighty chess pieces. And while Obi-wan’s vision was quiet, Anakin always mused about the rumbling he could hear under his rocky field. 

He wondered what he heard now.

“Obi-wan,” came the murmur, a whisper, a warm hand on his shoulder.

He looked up, red-rimmed eyes opening. “Qui-gon,” he blurted out, sitting up on his knees. “Qui-gon—I—“

“I know,” his Master said, soothing, gentle. “You did your very best.”

“I…I failed everyone. You, Anakin, Padme—Owen and Beru—Luke and Leia and the Force and the council and Yoda…I—“

“Obi-wan,” said Qui-gon’s ghostly presence. 

“I don’t know how everything went so wrong…” 

Qui-gon’s touch was cool and faint, like vaper. It wasn’t solid anymore but Obi-wan could not help but lean into it. 

The Force fluttered, flowing between them, strengthening the connection through their bond. 

“I suspect we went too far in one direction,” Qui-gon murmured to him.

Obi-wan started a little. “What do you mean?”

“If the Force requires balance and we say that intensity, aggression, hatred and anger lead to the Dark side—then it would go to show that joy, defense, peace would lead to the Light. We went too far. We had no emotion at all, no connection at all—and so the Dark had to even things out….but you can’t have the Dark without Light.”

“There is still no balance.”

“No, there is not.”

Obi-wan swallowed hard, wetting his upper lip. “What do I do…?”

“I am sorry,” Qui-gon murmured to him, touching his cheek, “that this has become your task to bear. The Force has led you here. Perhaps it was you all along.”

“No,” Obi-wan shook his head. “It…it can’t be me. Anakin was supposed to be the one. Could it be his children?”

“It could. The Force is always moving, always changing. You’ll find Yoda but…”

“….something else has to come first,” Obi-wan finished.

“Yes, though I don’t know what.”

Obi-wan saw that look in Qui-gon’s eyes. The same one he’d had when he was alive, in this place, looking over the burns on his Padawan’s back and throat. The Sith responsible lay in a smoking heap of limbs on the surface. It had made Qui-gon waiver just a little at the intensity of the protectiveness he’d felt towards Obi-wan in that moment. But instead of pushing it away, like he’d always been taught, he embraced it. Qui-gon had embraced it and felt the Force sing inside of him, guiding him to save his apprentice. 

Whether or not Qui-gon could remember such a thing, Obi-wan wasn’t sure but the look in his eyes made him think that maybe his Master did. 

Obi-wan said, “The Force led me here. It felt…right—to send Anakin’s children away. One to Alderaan, one to Tattooine. It felt correct to leave Owen and Beru behind…even though I didn’t want to.”

“There is something for a Jedi to do.”

“Yes….” Obi-wan said softly. “I think—“

But Qui-gon was gone. 

 

 

Obi-wan awoke, curled up in a ball at the wall of the cavern. His gear was next to him, though he didn’t remember going to get it. Judging by his data tablet, he’d been out for almost fifteen hours. Still, he got up slowly. His body ached, the fight with Anakin had been punishing for him. He set up a little base camp, ate a few crackers and spent the hours until he slept in meditation. 

This is what he’d needed. He needed to allow himself to grieve, to mourn all this loss and accept that, while it might be his fault—he had to fix it now. He had to do what he could to fix it now. 

The Force had led him to Tob’ck—he would start here.


	3. Vision

Obi-wan hit the ground, hard.

He groaned softly, gasping into the grass. His mouth was bone dry. He’d spent the last two days tending to his wounds and meditating. Well, the meditating wasn’t going very well. Any time he tried to sit still and clear his mind—he would track back to Anakin, to Padme, to Qui-gon…

There would be no peace for him yet. So he had to focus his mind if he couldn’t clear it. He was a Jedi Master—and a powerful one. Mind over matter. He could do this. At the Temple, they all learned martial arts and sword techniques. It had seemed very traditional at the time—but when he was granted his first training saber—he suddenly understood. Wooden sword to live steel to training saber to lightsaber. Hell, his old friend Sanjene had figured out how to make grilled cheese sandwiches by using the Force to rotate a sandwich over the live blades. Yeah, they had a bit of a sulfur taste to them—but they’d been quite proud of themselves at the time. Those had been pretty good days. Days before the Sith Wars--though, he wouldn’t trade his travel with Qui-Gon for anything. 

_Not even Anakin?_

He turned away from that thought. Obi-wan put his foot on the stone wall, planted it deep in the Force. It stuck. This, he could do. Focus and focus hard. He walked up the wall, feeding and drowning in the Force to keep him flaunting gravity. 

Sweat beaded on his face, streaked his filthy hair and dropped to the grass and water below. His shirt lay in a scorched bundle near the wall and though sunken deep into the Force, his muscles still bulged and trembled. His bared skin rippled to the air, his eyes lost focus and he took another step. He was nearly vertical now, hair reaching towards the ground. 

He could _see_ everything. Like the ancient ones talked about _Chakra_ , the Force illuminated life. Anything with a presence had an aura of the Force. The Force was known by many names, _Chakra_ was just one.

His body started to calm, his muscles relaxed. He stood on the ceiling and breathed deep.

 

_He could hear humming._

_Humming—and then a crash. But somehow muted, like he was under water._

_He looked up. There were two people with him, humans like himself. There was another Jedi. There was Yoda too._

_He looked up._

_A massive destroyer was exploding—it belonged to the empire. He’d had a hand in its destruction. He heard shouts, cheers, as this ship burned. It was an Imperial ship! How had he—_

His eyes opened, gasping, severing his connection. That was when he fell to the ground.

Obi-wan rolled over, swallowing the blood in his teeth. “The future. That…” he was panting. It had to be. That was the future. Taking down a star destroyer—the symbol of imperial power. Would there be a great battle? Well—if he was going to be present at the destruction of the ship—there must have been a battle. Something that could save them?

Obi-wan sat up. The people who had been with him—they hadn’t felt like Jedi but the future was not always clear. He struggled to his feet and staggered over to the water’s edge. He sunk like a ship, plodding into the shallows and collapsing into it. 

He washed himself in the water, trimmed his hair and beard. He scrubbed his clothes and his body, invigorated by what he’d seen. The Force and the lightsaber were there to augment combat, not replace it. The Force was defense, it was a shield. The Jedi were like Paladin warriors. Like Monks. But if it meant survival—he’d see this vision through. He’d never been very good at sitting back and letting the Force work its supposed Will. What was the point of Jedi if the Force had a Will in everything? Was that just a testament to the will and curiosity and stubbornness of humans and all other races who used the Force?

_We do not accept our fate. We fight constantly._

That was what defined sentient beings, really. Conflict and how it is handled and resolved. The Dark Side was supposed to be aggression, hatred, lack of control of emotion. The Light should have been the opposite….but it had become rather sterile. Lack of emotion was the ultimate control—they thought.

But…maybe that had been wrong. Maybe….maybe they’d been doing it wrong. Maybe the Force was meant to be felt and explored and paired with emotion. The whole time he’d been fighting Anakin—he’d been combating letting emotion cloud his instincts—but maybe he should have. Maybe if he had—the Force would have given him an alternate path. 

Maybe working in extremes wasn’t such a good idea. It wasn’t for anything else—so why would it be for the Force?

Obi-wan hung his clothes to dry and practiced, testing his body through familiar forms and fighting stances. He felt better now, more confident. The Force was certainly with him.

He must get topside first and get to a library or any other place he could find a central news hub. He wasn’t sure of the locations of any other Jedi but what better way to search than as a freighter. Yoda, of course, would be who he’d prefer to find but Obi-wan could now be confident that he would find the Master eventually.

 

 

Four hours later, he left his gear, taking only his datapad, satchel and credits. A quick Force jump to the geyser spout canal and he was swimming to the surface. It was night now and in the middle of their vast ocean, Tob’ka’s sky was a sea of stars. Obi-wan climbed back up the sea wall and let himself dry out before heading into the city. 

Unlike Tattooine and some other outer rim planets, Tob’ck had a Jedi outpost. It was intended to try to find those strong with the Force but too far away from the Inner Rim planets to be found normally (usually when a child began school, if not before). They were also considered an independent faction—if a slave came to the outpost, Jedi could evoke Galactic Privilege and take the slave out of the trade and send them to Coruscant. It sometimes made the Jedi a bit unpopular with local Hutts but—they didn’t quite dare to interfere. The Hutts ran their rackets and so long as the Jedi kept to their business—the Hutts would keep to theirs too. 

It hadn’t saved them this time. Obi-wan walked by the outpost. It was dark inside, the front doors had been destroyed. All the windows were smashed. Someone was lying face down in a window frame, blood soaked the wall. It was a testament to the hard life in the Outer Rim that not one other person on the street seemed to notice the body. Obi-wan ducked down the alley next to the building, grabbed onto a ladder and started up. 

“Hey!”

Obi-wan paused and glanced down. There was a woman looking up at him. “What?”

“Wouldn’t bother. Building’s already been looted. And there’s Troopers crawling around.”

“Well, we’ve all got to make a credit somehow,” he told her and then continued up. He rolled onto the roof but then stayed down, listening to see if the woman was going to follow him. She did not. Still, he was wary and he kept low, creeping across the roof to hatch door. His thermal knife made work of the locks and he slid inside. 

The ladder that would have normally eased him down was gone so he dropped in a crouch.

This was a storage room. Someone had been pinned in here and shot. He carefully turned the body over to peer into the dead face of an older woman. Her elegant hair streaked in grey. Her face was locked into something calm—there was no fear. Obi-wan gently closed her eyes and looked in her pockets. A few credits, a data tablet and her identification chip that proved her affiliation to the Jedi Temple. His eyebrows shot up—she was an archaeologist. 

A knight who had chosen to specialize in archaeology and research, she had probably studied at the Academy of Jedi Archaeology and worked with the Exploration Corps. What was she doing out here, managing an outpost? He checked her name, Ekthalia Tuli. No one he recognized. Had she been sent here because there was no one else? As punishment? Or was there something she was researching? Archaeologists tended to study the Jedi and Sith at length but they were perfectly capable of all other kinds of research too. There were many reasons that she could be here. Maybe there was an apprentice with additional information on her.

He apologized softly, a whisper in the darkness, for taking her credits and belongings. “I will make sure you are remembered, Master.” 

Even if her bank account on-planet had been frozen (which was very, very likely), there might still be something there to give him a clue. 

Obi-wan took her cloak and robe, leaving her other clothes. He bundled it up around her lightsaber and belongings and stuffed it into his satchel. He crept up to the door, listening first before he opened it. But it was silent. A long hallway stretched out before him. Each room had been ransacked, seemingly for its own sake rather than Troopers actually searching for anything. The Empire, no doubt, wanted to make its message clear. As the woman outside had indicated—much had already been looted. 

He heard a thump. 

He froze, calming himself a moment before listening again.

Another thump. 

Obi-wan slid around a corner and opened another door. 

This had once been a laboratory of some kind—it was destroyed now. He walked carefully through broken glass and twisted metal to another door in the lab. 

Thump. 

He heard it again. 

He slid his fingers over the knob. He could sense presence behind the door. Obi-wan took a step back, braced himself and kicked the door in. It shrieked off its hinges and slammed into the ground.

Three Stormtroopers stopped in whatever they’d been doing and looked at him. 

“Hey--!” One started—

And then Obi-wan moved. He didn’t need his lightsaber for this. He dashed inside, honing the Force around his hands and punched through the white breastplate. It cracked. He followed up with a kick that sent the Trooper flying. He never stopped though, spinning on his boot heel, grabbing the helmet of the second and slamming his knee into its face. The dark lenses shattered—

It seemed natural to grab into the shards of dark glass and use the Force to drive them deep into the Stormtrooper’s eyes and into its brain.

It seemed natural to twist around then and grab the third, slamming him up against the wall and sticking his thermal knife into his chest. He grunted, shuddered and died.

His vision cleared for a moment and he looked around him. At the other end of the room, three more Troopers were attempting to interrogate someone. That was all he processed before he was moving again. His thermal knife cut through their heavy white plate armor and he left them as smears on the cold walls.

The person being interrogated was, surprisingly, still alive. Obi-wan grabbed him. “Hey—are all right?”

The man looked at him blearily. He was young, really young. “Master…Ekthalia…she…”

“I’m sorry,” Obi-wan murmured to him, kneeling down to untie him. “She’s already dead.”

He shuddered. “I felt it…but…I hoped that maybe…” The young man clamped his lips together and shook his head.

“Was she your master?”

“Yes…”

Obi-wan stood to get the collar off his throat and did a double-take. “You’re….a Padawan.”

“Yes….I’m—my name is Vidrik VanMidea.”

“Ben Kenobi.”

He saw Vidrik’s eyes go wide, clearly recognizing the name. “Oh, shit. Master Kenobi—you can’t stay here. They’re looking for you!”

“I know. Calm down.”

“Did Master Skywalker really—“

“Yes.” Obi-wan cut him off. He didn’t really want to rehash that right now. He got an arm under the Padawan and helped him stand. And then he faced him. He drew his thermal knife and gently grabbed onto the Padawan’s braid. He sliced it off. “We need to get different clothes for you. Do you have any?”

Vidrik wiped blood off his chin. “Yes—some. Just a few things.”

“All right,” Obi-wan told him. “Stay here, get these Stormtroopers out of their armor. They have a black stretchy body armor underneath. We’ll take them all. I’ll go search the rest of the building.”

“Be careful, Master Kenobi.”

Obi-wan shut the door behind him—he hadn’t actually expected to find anyone here and alive. He supposed the only thing he could do was take the young man to Kintop. The rest of the building was empty of people but he did find the living quarters of the Padawan and his master. He stuffed everything he could into a bag, along with what little food remained and carried it back to the Padawan.

By the time he entered, Vidrik had stripped the Stormtroopers and had put on a black bodysuit. He gave the Padawan the clothes he’d found and Vidrik pulled them on. He looked like a young traveler—which was better than a Jedi at the moment. 

“Do you have a ship, Master Kenobi?”

“Yes—but we’re not leaving yet.”

“But—“

“I’ll take you to my camp. If anyone asks us, your name is Rick, my name is Ben. I’m your older brother.” He led the Padawan to the storage room. He gave the boy a significant look before he opened the door. He seemed to understand.

At least, he didn’t cry out. Obi-wan felt the Force flex in him, felt him instinctively reach out for his master’s presence. Vidrik knelt next to her. “You have her things?” he asked.

“Yes. They didn’t take her lightsaber.”

Vidrik touched her face. “I’m sorry,” he murmured.

Obi-wan heard him but he knew the apology wasn’t for him. He gave the boy a moment before he said, “We have to go now, Vidrik. I’m sorry.”

The Padawan nodded and stood. “Lead on Master Kenobi.”

Obi-wan led him to the outskirts very carefully and down into the water to return to Kintop. Vidrik did not seem surprised by its presence but still followed Obi-wan closely. 

He helped the Padawan down to the deck. “This is Kintop Glade. Have you ever been here before?”

“…no. My Master Ekthalia spoke of it—but she didn’t like being underwater so we never came here.”

Obi-wan studied the young man. He was still in shock. His voice had almost no emotion but his hands were shaking. “You can clean up in the water and I’ll see to your injuries. Then you need to rest.”

Vidrik looked at him and then silently nodded. “Yes, Master.” 

“Please—Vidrik—just call me Ben.”

The Padawan nodded and went off to the opposite corner of the cavern from Obi-wan. He could barely see the young man. He probably wanted privacy after what he’d experienced. Give him some time to mourn. 

In the meantime, Obi-wan laid out the belongings of this Master Ekthalia Tuli. He cleaned her lightsaber until it gleamed and set it in a sort of place-of-honor on a large stone with her identification chip. But Obi-wan kept hold of her datapad so he could look through it. 

When the Padawan returned, Obi-wan gave him food and then bandaged him up. “What were those Troopers trying to get out of you?”

Vidrik held still while Obi-wan worked. “They thought I knew the location of other Jedi. They thought…there must be more than just the two of us out here. But there aren’t. It’s just us—it was, I mean, just us.”

“I saw that Master Ekthalia was an archaeologist. Could that have something to do with it?”

“I don’t know,” Vidrik said softly, almost defeated. “She was researching a couple of Force anomalies but nothing that seemed…sinister or anything. We got the news of the massacre earlier today—we didn’t even know what was happening. She and I both felt it—massive disturbances in the Force. And when they didn’t stop, she contacted a Jedi Sentinel who was briefly in orbit of Tob’ck—I suppose that’s probably how they pinpointed our location. Monitoring communication channels and then simply following it here to us.”

“There was no way you could have known—in the Outer Rim, news travels slowly,” Obi-wan told him. “What happened to the Sentinel?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know anything…”

His despair became almost tangible, intense, disrupting his connection with the Force with erratic vibrations.

“Just rest for now, Vidrik. You did everything you could.”

He nodded silently and crept off to his little corner to curl up. If Obi-wan heard his soft weeping—he did not say anything of it. 

He turned on the other Master’s datapad. “All right—what have you got to tell me…”


End file.
